All That Jazz (1979)

Choreographer-turned-director Bob Fosse (Cabaret, Lenny) turns the camera on himself in this nervy, sometimes unnerving 1979 feature, a nakedly autobiographical piece that veers from gritty drama to razzle-dazzle musical, allegory to satire. It's an indication of his bravura, and possibly his self-absorption, that Fosse (who also cowrote the script) literally opens alter ego Joe Gideon's heart in a key scene--an unflinching glimpse of cardiac surgery, shot during an actual open-heart procedure.

Roy Scheider makes a brave and largely successful leap out of his usual romantic lead roles to step into Gideon's dancing pumps, and supplies a plausible sketch of an extravagant, self-destructive, self-loathing creative dynamo, while Jessica Lange serves as a largely allegorical Muse, one of the various women that the philandering Gideon pursues (and usually abandons). Gideon's other romantic partners include Fosse's own protégé (and a major keeper of his choreographic style since his death), Ann Reinking, whose leggy grace is seductive both "onstage" and off.

Fosse/Gideon's collision course with mortality, as well as his priapic obsession with the opposite sex, may offer clues into the libidinal core of the choreographer's dynamic, sexualized style of dance, but musical aficionados will be forgiven for fast-forwarding to cut out the self-analysis and focus on the music, period. At its best--as in the knockout opening, scored to George Benson's strutting version of "On Broadway," which fuses music, dance, and dazzling camera work into a paean to Fosse's hoofer nation--All That Jazz offers a sequence of classic Fosse numbers, hard-edged, caustic, and joyously physical. --Sam Sutherland Amazon.com

Self-indulgent brilliance

Fosse's "All that Jazz" is one of my all time favorite movies and I don't generally enjoy big production dance movies. In this movie, Fosse, through his actor, Roy Scheider, gets to play himself with all his talent, weakness, brilliance, stupidy, self-indulgence...and...evil. He lets us feel the phrenetic pace of an overcharged life and he shows us the fears, along with the associated thick skin, that come along with being a choreographer and playwrite. Without an effort to justify himself, he shows his opportunism in seducing young women trying to make it big. He shows us something of the women and child that he has injured but who are, at the same time, trying to save him from himself.

He shows a man dying of overwork, drug abuse and guilt. He shows us a man who simply doesn't care. He has a heart attack but lives...for a time...but a man like Fosse/Gideon simply doesn't live for long. They burn up like a short burning match. The movie is great but the last scene is even better. Death comes to him in the form of the hauntingly beautiful Jessica Lange. There is a truly remarkable dance routine centered on a jiving Ben Vereen. Everybody is there...everybody from his past...the strippers, whores, wife, child, girl friends, angry business partners. The rockin' tune is "There goes my Baby" and the rhythm is that of Fosse/Gideon's beating heart. Vereen's perfect eulogy is on the mark, "And you AIN'T nobody's friend." Bomp, bomp, bomp...bomp. Sweet death gets closer, closer, closer. Fosse/Gideon--or whatever is left of him--are brutally zipped up in a body bag. Terrific. Terrific and brilliant. Fosse has gone and choreographed his own death.

Ron Braithwaite author of novels, "Hummingbird God" and "Skull Rack"--on the Conquest of Mexico August 21, 2008

Lotta singing, lotta dancing, a fair bit of drugs and sex... it's like life, only snazzier!

Or should that be jazzier? Very entertaining film, but it's not all fun and games. There's definitely some dark stuff here, this is no "Meet Me in Saint Louis" style musical. But the songs and dancing are great, the story and acting are great. If you haven't seen this before, you're in for a treat. A really original film with many great, memorable scenes. July 29, 2008

Awesome, in every sense of the word.

All That Jazz (Bob Fosse, 1979)

Even at the tender age of ten, I was already both a ravening cinephile and a hardcore music fan. Cabaret was one of my favorite movies as a youngster (and doesn't it strike you, too, as odd that I would be exposed to such a movie repeatedly at such a tender age?), so it seemed to me, at the time, that All That Jazz, Fosse's other huge musical blockbuster, was a natural. My parents, however, were not so sure; stills from the movie combined with it being rated R for "graphic depictions of surgery" convinced my mother that there was some form of weird, and nude, interpretive dance going on with surgery as its theme. Well, mom, I'm here to tell you, finally, that a chest spreader is not an interpretive dance-- that really is a graphic depiction of surgery. (However, it's worth noting that nowadays, you see this sort of thing on shows like ER all the time, so don't let that stop you.) But, yeah, like the man said, "will there be [censored for Amazon consumption]?". Yup. Of course, as a ten-year-old, that's the other half of why I wanted to see this movie. It's twenty-nine years later, and I finally have.

The story: this is basically Bob Fosse's autobiography, through his alter ego Joe Gideon (Roy Schieder), a workaholic philanderer. We see him in the throes of putting together a stage show while at the same time overediting an epic film about a standup comedian (in real life, this is his 1974 flick Lenny), having flings with a bunch of starlets, trying hard, but in vain, to connect with his daughter (Erszebet Foldi, who never acted in another film), and indulging in the vast overuse of, well, just about everything he can get his hands on. I have to say that all of this leads to a pretty predictable outcome, but I also have to say that man, I did not see that ending coming. Maybe I should have, but wow.

It's a truism that, seeing a film thirty years after its release, you're going to be looking for different stuff than you would have thirty years before, and such is the case here. One of the great parts of this movie, for me, was seeing actors who have grown into brand names early in their careers (most notably John Lithgow and CCH Pounder), but the spectacle of this thing is just as amazing now as I'm sure it was then; I say this, mind you, as someone who generally can't stand musicals, despite my love of both film and music. Fosse obviously did this one from the heart, and it shows in every frame. Everything about this flick is top-notch; even if you don't like musicals, I highly recommend it. **** ½
May 30, 2008

All That Jazz Rocks!

Seldom seen on TV, this is a rather dark view of behind-the-scenes Broadway. It's an autobiographical movie of the choreographer/director Bob Fosse, a man who had great career success but was less successful in his personal life. And, don't forget the fabulous musical numbers and Bob's patented, sexy, sensational dance numbers.
A "don't miss" for fans of Cabaret and Chicago. May 8, 2008

incredible film

This is one of my favorite films. Creative, theatrical, thought provoking and something that I recommend to all my media students. April 19, 2008

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